


Catnip Cloud

by GreenSaplingGrace



Series: Team Avalanche Gets A Break [3]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cloud Adopts Strays, Cloud Strife Needs a Hug, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cuteness overload, Fluff, Gen, He Gets Cats Instead, Insecurity, Kittens, Purrs & Pets, Self Confidence Issues, Soft Cloud Strife, Sort Of, literal fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:39:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24447457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenSaplingGrace/pseuds/GreenSaplingGrace
Summary: Cloud doesn't know what he did to make every cat in the city suddenly adore him, but he would please like it to stop, thank you. His reputation can't handle much more of this.
Relationships: Cloud Strife & Barret Wallace, Cloud Strife & Cats, Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife
Series: Team Avalanche Gets A Break [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1754803
Comments: 27
Kudos: 229





	Catnip Cloud

The gray tabby is the start of it all. Hell, it’s probably the cat that decided to curse him, in the end. Thoroughly rebuffed and unrepentantly vindictive in her revenge. As most cats are when spurned, Cloud assumes. Though he doesn’t know nearly enough about them to be sure if that’s true for all of them.

But this one? Definitely.

It begins innocently enough. With her wide green eyes peering up at him from the shopkeeper’s counter-top. A low purr filling the room even as she eyes him suspiciously. 

Cloud ignores her. Because he’s got pay to collect and another job to do, and most cats flee the second he tries to interact with them, anyway. 

Then he feels a wetness rubbing against his arm.

It’s sudden and unexpected, enough to make him clench a fist in surprise, almost reaching for his sword. Yet when he looks down at his attacker, all he sees is a speckled felt tipped nose and imploring eyes. She meows at him, blinking as he stares incredulously, and starts to purr louder - soft rumble quickly turning to the roar of a motorboat as she ducks even further forward to lick eagerly at his wrist. 

Rolling over with a dull thud, the cat quickly commandeers the entire length of his arm, rubbing her soft, vibrating back against it as she purrs wildly.

Then there’s a startled meow from her as the doors to the backroom bang open, and without thinking Cloud is yanking his arm away. He presses it flat to his side, distancing himself from this stranger’s pet as she re-enters the room. Only to have the cat hiss out a curse, rising to all fours in a scornful fury before leaping gracefully from the counter.

He watches her land dazedly, and has just enough time to see the accusing glare she throws back at him over her shoulder before she darts away.

“Oh my!” the shopkeeper exclaims, looking more than a bit alarmed, “What happened?” 

Cloud ducks his head and grabs the money when she holds it out, clearing his throat awkwardly. “It’s just...the mako,” he mutters, “cats don’t like me.”

“Right,” the shopkeeper laughs, knocking once on wood before leaning curiously over the counter to eye the cat’s escape route. She doesn’t appear at all upset with Cloud when she stands again to look at him, and he relaxes a fraction at her next words. “Well, don’t let it get you down! Sonya is notoriously hard to please.”

“Really?” Cloud asks, and it’s a momentary lapse of judgement. A simple, normal question that has him panicking as he realizes he started down an avenue for more casual conversation, the shopkeeper already opening her mouth to continue on.

So he rushes out a quick, “that’s interesting, but I’ve got to go," pocketing the money and dashing from the building before she can respond.

He wastes no time in turning down the street, already heading for his next destination, and pushes the instance with the cat from his mind, other problems rapidly taking its place. _Real_ problems, like the amount of monsters he has to fight and bargaining for a better pay. Delivering packages and protecting the unfortunate souls that happen to wander into the scrapyard. Navigating the newly familiar streets of Sector 7 with an easy grace as he walks from location to location and makes his rounds.

There are no troubles for a while after that. No rare encounters with strange animals or situations that call for too much alarm. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Right up until he comes across the second cat of the day.

And this one, too, does not run away.

The first thing Cloud notices is that she’s bigger than the other cat. Pure white and long haired with a large, floofy tail raised high in ecstatic pleasure. Her eyes are perfectly round, surrounded by rings so black it appears as if she’s lined them with kohl, and her pupils are blown wide as she bounds closer.

Cloud stops in the middle of the alley, startled by the cat's sudden presence; almost tripping over his feet to avoid kicking her as she curls right around his leg with no hesitation. She’s purring so loudly it practically reverberates on the surrounding sheets of metal, and all Cloud can do is stand frozen, gawping down at her.

“What the fuck?”

The cat just keeps purring. Leaving long white furs all along the bottoms of his pants in her mission to mark every single inch of his lower legs. 

It’s only after a while that she finally stops and tilts her head to look up at him, pointed white ears swiveling to reveal small, unruly tufts of hair at the tips. Cloud swallows, cheeks heating as he glances around for any witnesses before he leans down and rubs one velvety ear between his fingertips.

The cat doesn’t protest at all except to let out a pleased meow and press harder into his hand. She twists until his palm rubs along the smooth puff of fur atop her head and allows him to curl his fingers through her long, silken strands.

A noise at the end of the alley makes him pull away mid-pet, mind instantly rebooting as he rights himself. 

Cloud flushes even further as he realizes what he’s just done. An ex-SOLDIER mercenary _petting_ a _cat_ in the middle of a mission. Gaia, if anybody saw him right now he’d be out of a job so fast he’d get whiplash.

Embarrassed, he tries to gently shove the cat away with his boot, but she remains stubbornly attached, staring up at him with wide, innocent eyes as if she doesn’t know exactly what she’s doing.

He huffs down at her, not quite able to muster a scowl. “Move,” he tells her succinctly. 

She considers him for a moment. Then she turns, regally presenting her fluffy white butt, and for one brief, shining moment he thinks he’s free. That she’s going to run away now and prove that this has all been a fluke. Until she moves right on over to his other leg, purrs rising to a crescendo like they’d never stopped, and rolls directly onto the top of his shoe, effectively pinning him down.

“What the _fuck?_ ” He demands of the universe.

And then another meow joins the fray.

_Oh Gaia._

An orange tabby peaks his head out from around the edge of the alley that leads into the scrapyard. Long whiskers twitching as he eyes Cloud and his noisy companion.

A small white paw snakes into view.

“No,” Cloud snaps at the newcomer, pushing fruitlessly at the white cat again, “Shoo. Shoo! I said leave!” His cries fall on deaf ears. Which just so happen to be short and wide and very curiously pointed towards them, and Cloud reluctantly gives up his pleading as the orange tabby soldiers on.

He approaches slower than the white cat had, crouching low as he sneaks across the dirty concrete, and as he gets closer Cloud notices that he’s a big, chubby thing. With a face squashed and flat, sporting a scarred pink nose and slanted eyes. One is green and one is yellow, and both gradually show more and more interest as he gets closer.

“Stay away,” Cloud tries again, attempting to take a step back.

His heel hits a squishy body instead of the hard ground, a warning hiss cutting through the air in response. Heart dropping, Cloud looks back to see the slitted, angry yellow eyes of a slim black cat. She swipes a paw at him, claws scraping harmlessly across his boot, and prances in front of him before can protest.

“What-”

A long meow interrupts him this time around, warbling curiously, and Cloud sighs when he realizes where it's coming from. His shoulders droop as he turns back around and sees a brown, dog eared Havana with three legs joining the orange tabby’s crawling assault. Not far behind them both is another cat, narrow eyed and suspicious. She has a cream colored coat with a brown fade and a slim black tail. The black splash on her nose spreads just far enough to stand out in stark contrast to her vivid blue eyes.

A Siamese cat, Cloud realizes.

_Where the hell are all these cats coming from?!_

And more importantly, how does he get rid of them? Because if anybody sees him now, he’s done for. They shouldn’t even be here. They shouldn’t even _like_ him!

It’s as if every cat in the world suddenly decided he was their friend.

“Don’t come any closer,” he warns the approaching army, and the brown Havana in particular seems to take that as his cue to break into a sprint and nose straight into the white fluffy one’s territory.

White fluffy hisses in response, puffing up and kicking like an angered chocobo, and Cloud barely manages to scoop her from the air before she flying tackles the new arrival.

“Okay, calm down, um…” there’s no collar, “Fluffy.”

_Gaia, what would Tifa say?_

She can never find out.

The air is filled with a chorus of meows and rising purrs as the rest of the cats arrive, all rubbing persistently at his legs; sprawling across his boots. All with blown pupils and high tails like spikes that stick above the mass of roiling fur and bodies.

“Please stop,” he says miserably, already certain of the answer.

Sure enough, as soon as the words leave his lips every cat just purrs even louder, butting their heads against him to let him know they’re sticking around. 

_My image will never recover from this._

There’s a few nips at his legs, too, and the black cat actually rises up on her hind paws, bracing herself against his upper leg. She lets out a pleading whine, then starts kneading at his pants. Her unhappy meows flip almost instantaneously to purrs as she does so, eyes closing happily as she pokes out her little pink tongue, rumbling away.

Fluffy responds to that by snuggling into the crook of the elbow farthest from the interference, content to keep humming at her own pace, and Cloud gets the feeling she won’t be leaving his arms anytime soon.

He glances about another time for onlookers, almost pitifully grateful when there aren’t any. Then he shifts, placing a hesitant hand on the black cat’s head. He thumbs at her ears as she leans into it, digging his fingertips into the soft down of her scruff. 

“No collar, either,” he mumbles to himself. _Are they all street cats?_

He scratches her lightly under the chin, valiantly trying to push down the warmth that wells in his chest when she makes little contented noises, lapping at his fingers. He shouldn’t name her. He knows that. Knows it can only bring more trouble, especially if it turns out she does have an owner, after all. Yet he finds himself speaking before he realizes it, the name “Luna” falling almost naturally from his lips.

She doesn’t respond at all, of course. Instead dropping back onto all fours and strutting in a circle around his legs with a self satisfied air. 

He leaves her to it and focuses on the other cats, who are all _still here._ They’re loud and playful now, more meows than purrs as they tussle with each other, bumping into him frequently. The Siamese is the only one who is still continuously rubbing up against the same spot, but even her purrs are quiet and reserved. 

Cloud takes their distraction for what it is: an opportunity. So he hastily backs away, pausing only briefly to lean over and drop Fluffy back on her feet. She gives him an offended look as he does so, but he’s already hurrying away before she can jump right back up again. 

He swears to himself that he’ll take care of the job later, after he’s ditched his strange - probably drugged - entourage of small fluffy animals. But right now he needs to leave. Needs to be anywhere but here, because the longer he sticks around with the cats, the more likely he is to get noticed.

Cloud books it hard to the main road, pace just on the edge of a run, but he still only makes halfway down the alley before he hears small paws begin to patter behind him. He moves faster, determinedly not looking back, but the sound keeps up. Scampering, echoing meows and the occasional fluffy collision with ringing metal sheets. And the sounds are getting closer.

 _What the fuck._ They’re following him! Why are they following him?!

He breaks out into a run. Turns the corner into the main road and crashes through the crowd of citizens without slowing for a second. Protests and curses rise up behind him, but so does the army of paws and yowling cries for attention. And of course, as soon as that happens the angry voices switch to innocent bewilderment. Surprised coos and bellowing laughs as people move closer to view the spectacle.

Cloud lowers his head, face heating. Hurries past the main buildings and into a separate set of isolated alleyways, turning any and every corner he can in order to lose his tail until finally - _finally_ \- the sound of cats behind him dies away.

Cloud finds himself a concrete clearing, surrounded on three sides by the walls of a dead end. This is as good a place as any, so he stops and takes a second to breathe. He leans back against the nearest wall and ignores the scrape of his sword against concrete. Relishing the chance to close his eyes and let his muscles relax.

Not even a second later, he opens them to the sound of faint cries. 

Cloud instantly recognizes the noise; knows without a doubt that it’s coming from a number of cats around the wall opposite him, and almost decides right then and there to leave. Except that the cries sound _distressed_ and tiny. A kitten’s fearful, shaky whimpers.

Figuring he’s isolated enough and nobody will ever know it was _him_ that saved some helpless kittens, Cloud pushes off the wall and heads over. It’s not nearly as reluctant as it should be, but nobody has to know.

Nobody will _ever_ know.

His heart pangs when he sees them, though, stuck atop a rusty old pipe about two feet above him. There’s two of them, both cream colored with dark speckles, and they’re shaking like leaves - absolutely terrified. For some reason, they’re both soaked completely through as well, shivering violently and fur sticking up in dirty wet clumps, noses twitching against the cold. He figures they probably need to get down soon, or they’re going to either fall or die of hypothermia, so he makes quick work of finding a box sturdy enough for him to stand on.

He keeps an eye one them as he moves, and sees the exact moment they notice him, preparing the box beneath their unsteady perch. Because as soon as they set eyes on him they begin to get even more fidgety, paws slipping on the flaky metal as they try to pull away, and he feels his veins run cold as one of them screeches, clawing fearfully at the bar as her hind paws dip over the side.

“Hey,” he whispers, fruitlessly trying to soothe her fearful wails. Cupping his hands in the space under her, he steps up onto the box and continues talking, “hey, it’s alright. I’m only here to help you. I promise.”

Grabbing her is easy once he’s got the box under him. Curling his fingers around her tiny body, he allows her weight to rest in his palms. It gets heavier gradually as she stays hanging for as long as possible - dark eyes wide and pupils so thin they’re barely visible - but after a time she starts to get tired. Her hold weakens, and he waits patiently for her to relax completely, paws eventually unhooking from the rusted metal.

 _Kara,_ he thinks as he cradles her small form against his chest, stepping down from the box, _this one’s name is Kara._

He absolutely does not want to let her go. The coppery taste of fear is still heavy on his tongue - nerves alight with the need to _move_ and _protect_ \- but the brother is looking awfully ready to jump after his sibling. So Cloud steps away as quickly as possible, setting her on the ground a short distance from the box, and returns to retrieve the other kitten.

Her brother is a lot easier to get down than she had been, and Cloud instantly has him pegged as a _Zaya._ He’s smaller than his sister, lighter to carry and more skin and bones.

He’s more afraid, too. In a way that lets Cloud know _exactly_ what happened to them. In a way makes his stomach _turn_.

Kara had been fearful of the metal and the fall, sure, but Zaya flinches when Cloud reaches for him. Actively twitching away from his fingers even after Cloud gets a hold of him, cowering in the center of his palms.

Cloud has never wanted to kill someone so much in his life. Burying his sword in their back would only rid the world of one more evil. Would only make it cleaner. His shoulders tense as the need burns in him - high and searing. Yet not even seconds later it’s doused in icy water as both the kittens start to cry.

He drops to his knees and picks up Kara, wrapping his arms around them both this time around. There’s thin, wispy fur beneath his fingertips. Bird-like bones and only the slightest layer of fat, and that protective urge surges up again. Almost burning him up from the inside out until he distracts himself. Leaning over their trembling bodies and pressing gentle shushes into their damp fur, combing out the tangles with a single minded focus.

Only briefly does he worry that someone is watching, entirely captivated by the drowsy, thawing kittens in his hold. So distracted that he barely catches the sound of claws scraping across rough concrete, heralding the presence of a new arrival. One he instantly knows to be the kittens’ mother when he looks up and sees a large Burmese cat with sleek, apricot colored creamy fur staring right at him. Her back arches high off the ground when her dark eyes settle on the babies in Cloud’s lap, and he’s quick to place them on the ground in front of him before she gets it in her mind to attack.

The swish of her long, pointed tale switches abruptly to an upright, pleased curve above her back when she sees her children safe on the ground again, but it’s only after Cloud has backed a good three feet away that she finally darts over. 

Kara and Zaya perk up excitedly, nosing at their mother’s soft fur as she determinedly licks them clean, curling around them both protectively. A series of purrs starts to rise from the little group. Kara and Zaya both lean into their mother’s side with high tails and happy meows, receiving an equal amount of licks and rubs - attention split evenly between the two of them.

 _Fair,_ he thinks of the mother cat, even though he knows he shouldn't name her. _Gaia,_ he _knows._ But he just can’t seem to peel away from the small reunion in front of him. Can’t push himself to move at all.

And, of course, that’s when a cacophony of other meows joins the fray.

“Dammit!” _He’d waited too long._

Cloud attempts to make a daring escape before the army of cats arrives, but it’s already too late. The orange tabby rams into him first, hopping into Cloud's lap without a second’s hesitation and forcing him down to the ground with an unforgiving weight. Then he flops to his stomach and starts purring incessantly - a rumbling, furry heater atop Cloud’s thighs - as the other cats begin to circle him. 

Their distressed meows quickly turn to pleased ones now that they’ve hunted him down, kneading their paws to his clothes and rubbing against his sides. There’s even a new arrival. A round, sleek tuxedo cat with silvery yellow eyes who nuzzles lightly at his palm with a white and black velvety nose, asking politely for pets.

Cloud is hard pressed to oblige.

The other cats seem to take that as their sign to ramp up the purring, nipping greedily at any exposed skin they can find. The brown Havana - _Runi,_ he decides spontaneously - actually rolls onto his back beside Cloud’s legs to reveal a downy soft stomach. Infinitely floofier and puffier than his short haired brown coat, and Cloud can only resist not providing belly rubs for so long before he accepts his fate.

Then Fluffy prances around his back, and he almost devolves into another bout of panic. Especially when the Siamese cat follows her around, still as silent as ever. Yet evidently curious.

His _sword,_ he remembers. Dangerously sharp edges and a width broad enough to get in their way. Definitely enough to spark an interest. _What if they try to rub against his back?_

His mouth dries and he whips around, ignoring the displeased fangs biting into his fingers when he tears his hand away from the tuxedo. 

He's only mildly gratified when he sees the other two are giving his sword a wide berth. They're clearly suspicious, but they also look literal seconds away from throwing caution to the wind and investigating, despite all signs saying that they shouldn't. So he reaches out to them, hurriedly making low tsking noises in the hopes that they’ll come over for pets instead.

Fluffy responds immediately because she’s a good cat and a greedy bastard, but the Siamese remains aloof. She turns away in what Cloud assumes to be the cat’s version of a derisive scoff, and whips her black tail in the direction of his face as retribution.

“Come on,” he tries again, but there’s still no positive response. It seems she only likes to cuddle when it’s on her own terms.

Sighing, Cloud gets his free hand under Fluffy’s stomach and moves her back in front of him. Where she begins to play with the Fair family the moment her paws hit the ground.

He turns back to the Siamese again only to see her a good distance closer to the sword, reaching out a curious paw toward the edge of it.

“No!” He snaps, heart pounding. “Don’t-” He reaches for her lightning quick, ignoring her offended yowls as he hauls her in the air by the scruff, swinging her around to drop her in the spot Fluffy had been sniffing about only seconds ago. 

She responds by pressing her stomach to the ground, giving him a mean glare, and his throat closes with something like shame at the sight of her so visibly upset.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

She only glares harder before sniffing and turning away.

“Sorry...Niko.” She peers back over at him when the name slips out, so he repeats it again and lays a hand atop her back, running a gentle touch along the brown trail of her spine. “Niko. I’m sorry. That’s dangerous. Please don’t.”

Short, simple words. He hopes that maybe she understands them, even if she doesn’t show it.

_What has he been reduced to?_

And how did this _happen?_ Cats hate Cloud, usually. But not today it seems, for some inexplicable reason, and it’s driving him up the walls. If anybody saw him right now, covered in cat and kittens, surrounded by purring, ecstatic fluff balls and _engaging_ with them, he’d never live it down.

 _Gaia, please let nobody ever come this way,_ he begs the planet.

The planet does not answer.

But Barret sure does.

“Holy shit, merc!” He hears from the end of the alley, and he freezes, eyes closing slowly in resignation, “is that you?”

“No.”

“Are those cats?! Damn, they’re everywhere. What the hell did you do, dunk yourself in catnip?” And Barret is laughing now. Full, bellowing cackles that rock the area and make the cats jump. Though they start up again with no problems as soon as Barret isn’t deemed a threat.

_He should be._

Cloud’s ears are hot with embarrassment, and he studiously does not look at the other man. “It’s for a job-”

“No it ain’t!”

The meows seem to rise in agreement, and the tuxedo cat shoves himself up and into Cloud’s arms, forcing him to take hold and lift before the orange tabby is squished.

“Well, it seems the merc ain’t so tough after all, huh?”

“Don’t you have a kid to take care of?” Cloud hisses, finally turning to face Barret with narrowed eyes even as he struggles to contain the squirming rolls of black and white vibrating fur in his arms. The tuxedo cat rises until his paws are braced on Cloud’s shoulder guard, then nudges his half colored nose into Cloud’s jaw, forcing him to tilt his head back or risk the scrape of teeth and tongue.

“Don’t you talk about Marlene!” Barret huffs at him, but the hot air he’s blowing only seems to last for a moment before he returns to sounding like this is the best damned day of his life. “And yeah, I do. So I guess I’m headed back to the bar.” Barret barks out another laugh, and Cloud grits his teeth against the sudden urge to punch that smug look right off his face. 

“Where the rest of the gang is hanging out…and Tifa.” He chuckles when Cloud’s glare deepens, then turns and starts to walk away. “Take care, kitten whisperer!”

“It isn’t-I’m not-I’m a _mercenary!_ ” All he gets in answer in _another_ stupid laugh as Barret finally disappears. 

“Fuck!” _This sucks._

Cloud sighs. Observing almost absent mindedly as Tuxedo rears back on his forepaws to take a good long look at Cloud’s frown.

“Rubbing it in, huh?” He asks the cat, feeling foolish when Tuxedo doesn’t even deign to acknowledge him. Simply hopping down and falling to his side in order to rub against Cloud’s legs instead.

The fat orange tabby’s weight shifts as his jaw stretches into a yawn, tiny fangs glinting in the fading daylight, and Cloud realizes that he’s been out for more than a couple hours. That he's wasted at least half the day to this ridiculous childishness. _Playing with cats._

And now Barret’s going to head straight back to Seventh Heaven and tell Tifa all about it.

 _So much for appearing cool,_ he despairs, scritching at the fluff of the orange tabby’s side. Cloud sighs, stopping to rub briefly at the pink of his short, wide ears before using both hands to haul the tabby off to the side.

“You’re a cheeto puff,” he tells the cat, and the newly dubbed Cheeto Puff only yawns again, purrs tapering as he waddles a path straight back to Cloud’s warmth, resting his chin on Cloud’s knee.

“And you’re all nuisances,” he grumbles, fighting off a smile as Cheeto Puff blinks languidly, eyes closing in delight when Cloud rubs a finger over the downy white fluff beneath his jaw. 

“Persistent nuisances,” he continues, “irritating nuisances.”

Tired nuisances.

Who look dirty and beat and starved. The kittens are scrawnier than they have any right to be and their mother looks no better. Not to mention their fur is still suffering from the aftereffects of being completely soaked through.

The other cats look put out, too. Sharp angles where there shouldn’t be and sticking bones instead of healthy layers.

 _It couldn’t hurt to feed them,_ he decides, standing carefully. He won’t keep them around, of course, but he could get some food in their bellies and some shelter over their heads for the coming night.

Extracting himself from their cat pile takes some effort. As does does stepping over their constantly moving bodies as they dart about in alarm, snatching every opportunity to rub against him as he brings his feet down. But eventually, slowly, he makes it to the end of the alley. Thinking for a second as they linger in the wide concrete clearing that they won’t be coming home, after all, and belatedly scolding himself for hoping that they would.

Except then one darts over. And another and another, mother and kittens and black and white streaks of fur circling ahead. With Runi hopping along behind them and Niko scuffing occasionally against his boots in a game of approaching and fleeing randomly. Until Cheeto Puff rounds up the last of them, taking on the rear guard -

And they all follow Cloud home.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve got like twelve tumblr prompts to fill and the next chapters of Roulette *plus* Broken Are the Faithful and I’m still out here writing crackfic one-shots like I’ve got nothing better to do -_- I KNOW this is utterly ridiculous but look, like,,, sometimes you gotta write something serious and in character and sometimes you just gotta go stupid go crazy.
> 
> Anyways this was supposed to be a fun one-shot about a singular occurrence where a bunch of cats end up liking Cloud for a day, but I ended up naming them all and now I’m attached 😩. So there will probably be more of the cat family in the future.


End file.
